All Blog Posts Tagged 'gazing' (6)

Meade Lightbridge Dobsonian Surrier Truss Telescopes A dobsonian telescope consists of optics which were designed by Isaac Newton in the 1660's, on a mount popularized by John Dobson in the 1960's. They say more than half of all amateur scopes are of this type and I believe it. Many people make their…

Capricornus the Seagoat The name Capricornus has been shortened to Carpricorn by some folks. But that is a very recent thing, like only in the last hundred years maybe. Either way, it means Seagoat. And Seagoat is the oldest known name still in use for anything in the whole sky. People have been calling these stars the Seagoat for more than 7000…

Scorpius the Scorpion In the scorpion we find lots of bright stars that make an obvious fish hook shape, especially when you ignore the claws that the Romans surgically shortened in order to make Libra. In fact some natives of the south pacific call this constellation "Maui's Hook." You see Maui is one of the gods in the lands down under. His…

Leo the Lion The big kitty is one of the few real connect-the-dots sort of allegories. It makes a reasonable stick figure of an animal at least. The Chinese call it the horse. It takes some imagination. If you try to connect the dots you may get something that looks like a coat hanger after it's been used to unlock a car door. That's how I drew…

Taurus the Bull Taurus is a bull, well half of a bull anyway. The front half. Actually mostly the head, with a shiny red eye. I think he’s been drinking. He’s charging Orion who appears to be perfectly prepared to defend himself from the assault. Orion also appears to have lost his pants but we don’t talk about…

The beaten path that the Sun appears to trod on its yearly trek among the stars is the oldest known method of mapping our way around the sky. So the Sun was the center of celestial attention even before people promoted it to admin of the solar system. That makes a lot of sense to me. I could argue (without much effort) that out of all the thousands of gods that people have ever prayed to for a little help, the Sun is the one that delivers the most tangible… Continue